seek: my English training would naturally
have the effect of making me look for a verdict on my work not to my own
notebook, nor even to the principal's returns, but to some higher and
extra-mural authority who should test the attainments of the pupils and
the efficiency of the school by a searching and impartial examination.

In English middle-class schools the advent of the "Oxford and Cambridge
Schools Examination Board" is regarded with no small anxiety by
principals, masters and scholars alike. It marks an epoch in their
lives, and is the only period of the year in which there is anything
like a _rapprochement_ between them, as if in the presence of some
imminent crisis. The eccentric jackanapes who is by turns the butt and
witling of the school stands for once consciously on equal terms with
his principal, and can for once even "cheek" the school-bully with
perfect impunity. All is excitement, anticipation, preparation and much
consuming of midnight oil. Perhaps a very brief account, in conclusion,
of the methods of procedure in these examinations may interest the
reader; and in case he should think that my object in offering my sketch
is to draw an invidious comparison between the English and American
methods of examination, I refer him to an animated and interesting
correspondence in the April issue of the _Nation_ between President
Eliot of Harvard and Professor Adams of Michigan University--a
discussion in which the former gentleman enthusiastically claims for the
English method a degree of excellence which the most ardent home
advocates of the system--who know its _working_ faults as well as its
positive advantages--would hesitate to claim for it.

The English board holds two kinds of examinations: First, examinations
of schools for the benefit of schools exclusively, and having no effect
to admit individuals to the universities or to exempt them from
subsequent examinations, whether at the universities or elsewhere;
second, examinations of individuals for certificates which give
exemption from the entrance-examinations at Oxford and Cambridge, from
the earliest examinations of the university course, and from the
preliminary examinations of certain professional bodies. The
examinations cover thirty-four different and carefully-specified
subjects (no candidate taking the whole), and on the average two hours
are allowed for writing answers to the questions in each subject; the
examinations last from eight to t